Imaging Science

Artists often ask themselves the same questions as scientists and share many of the same principles: originality, creativity and an open mind. For photographers and artists, science is a subject as well as a source of inspiration. How can artists capture abstract science in an appealing and aesthetic way?
Can they surprise scientists and the broader audience with their imagination? The Noorderlicht International Photography Festival 2017 is about science and the representation of it by photographers and artists: NUCLEUS, imagining science. In this Science Café, artists and scientists will enter into a dialogue with one another.

British photographer Marcus Lyon, one of the participants of the Noorderlicht festival, will elaborate on his project OPTOGENOME. In this project, Lyon explores the current state of modern laboratories, seen from both a typological as well as an emotional, contrary viewpoint. All his images were realized in collaboration with the scientists at the oncology and infection campus of the American pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London.

Brazilian visual artist Otavio Schipper and musician Sergio Krakowski have been using scientific research such as artificial intelligence, computational music theory, electronic engineering and neuroscience, to develop complex sound and light installations. Their projects lead the public into territories more closely associated with dream states and imagination dives, instead of a systematic organization of knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. They will present their project ‘Smoking Mirror’, a sound and light installation, exploring the connection between mental activity and the cognitive awareness of one’s own body in space. In Groningen, they work as artists in residence in the KLAS (Knowledge Link through Art and Science) project.

Groningen scientists Lucy Avraamidou, associate professor of science education and science communication, and Jan Kok, Professor of Molecular genetics, will react on the art projects and the representation of science in the NUCLEUS exposition.

Participants

Marcus Lyon studied Political Science at Leeds University, Leadership at Harvard Business School and Performance Measurement at the Kennedy School of Government, also part of Harvard University. His work has been exhibited internationally, and has been awarded the B&H Gold Award, the Agfa Photographer of the Year and five AOP AwardsOtavio Schipper holds a degree in Physics from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and has received the 2015 Fellowship from the Akademie der Künste BerlinSergio Krakowski holds a PhD in Mathematics from the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics in Rio de JaneiroLucy Avraamidou is associate professor of science education and science communication at the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the Groningen UniversityJan Kok is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the Groningen University. He works together with the artists in residence Otavio Schipper and Sergio Krakowski in the KLAS projectAlex van den Berg: moderator